Leeds 01 December / Bristol 03 December

This autumn we will be running our ‘marketing your design business in a cold climate' workshop nationwide. The workshop offers focused and pragmatic advice on winning new business and deepening relationships with existing clients within a difficult trading period.

The workshop assumes some prior knowledge of marketing and new business activity and will be delivered in bite-sized chunks in an intensive 3.5 hour session – 1.30 to 5.30pm to minimise time away from the studio.

What it costs:

DBA member tickets: £180+vat

Standard tickets: £250+vat

Download our booking form here

What will be covered?

How do you put a business plan together for the current climate?

• New business strategy in the current climate, and keeping the clients you have.
• Is it more of the same for the same clients, more of something else for the same clients, more of the same for new clients, something new for new clients?
• Examining the opportunities (and constraints) using marketing development theory

Road testing your new business strategy

• You have a plan but how do you make sure it's robust? Ways of interrogating and testing new business strategy - who are you targeting, when, where, how and why.
• Understanding the length and complexity of the client route to design consultancy and the various different points at which decision-making can be influenced
• What information are you collecting about your marketing strategy and how are you analysing and using this?

New business development strategies: the barefoot marketer

• Understanding what clients really want from design consultancy, using Michael Wolff's reminder that in order to stand in another person's shoes you have to take your own off first.
• Ways of reinvigorating an existing business
• Ways of targeting new clients
• The process of converting an initial enquiry into a deal and them making expectations match reality so that you can keep the client

Understanding the design offer

• Design as a service industry; product focused and client-focused companies; how clients source and manage design; assessing the competition; crucial importance of client service excellence

Drilling down into positioning

• Examining the importance of understanding and actively managing market positioning and the growing influence of market specialism

Influence of marketing strategy, planning and activity on running a healthy business

• How can these activities best be organised and integrated within the company?
• Who does what and how do you plan for the costs of marketing and new business activity?

Participants will also take part in two practical exercises.

Speaker

Liz Lydiate

From a pioneering starting point in the mid 1970s, Liz has been influential in the introduction of professional practice teaching in art and design colleges nationally. She devised and acts as course director for the DBA Professional Practice Course, and established and managed BA and MA Design Management Programmes at The Surrey Institute (now University of the Creative Arts). She is course director for MA Enterprise and Management of the Creative Arts programmes at the University of the Arts London, where she specialises in career and practice development for creative individuals.